Luke Joeckel is the No. 1 seed in the 2013 NFL Draft. The Louisville Cardinals are the No. 1 overall pick in the 2013 NCAA Tournament. Or something like that.

Filling out a mock bracket in March is a national obsession. Draftniks can only hope mock drafting becomes such the rage. For those of us who love making picks of any kind, the month provides a beautiful convergence between the end of college basketball and the unofficial beginning of the pro football season. Why else would the Field of 68 and the First Round of 32 add up to the Magical 100?

For 2013, a good start means knowing James Madison isn't a top wide receiver prospect and Tavon Austin isn't the 16th seed in the East Regional. For those of you who are more well-versed in the art of mocking, here are some sleeper tips with real upside:

Mock draft: Don't trust the Big Ten

Mock bracket: Trust the Big Ten

For the first time since 1953, there's a strong possibility there will not be a first-round draft pick from the Big Ten. Sixty years ago, there were 13 first-round selections.

The only real candidates are a pair of defensive tackles, Purdue's Kawann Short and Ohio State's Jonathan Hankins. With other players at the position rising, mocking in the two Big Ten DTs late in the round is becoming less popular. As if we haven't heard enough about the conference not having the football talent to stack up with other premier conferences.

Basketball is a different story. Seven Big Ten teams made this tournament, and its four best squads—Indiana, Ohio State, Michigan and Michigan State—all have potential to play in the same Final Four. It's been 13 years since a Big Ten team (MSU) won a national championship in basketball, but since 2000, the conference has put 10 teams in the Final Four.

Not one of the aforementioned teams is seeded below No. 4, and Wisconsin (No. 5) and Illinois (No. 7), with some big wins this season, are dangerous floaters. It's smart to avoid Big Ten players in your mock, but don't shy away from picking its teams often in your bracket.

Mock draft: Don't undervalue the smaller guys who can pass

Mock bracket: Don't undervalue the bigger guys who can shoot

As we were reminded by first-round talent Russell Wilson falling into the third round last season, concerns about size at quarterback can be severely outweighed by head and heart. Compared to the 5-11 Wilson, Geno Smith and Matt Barkley, each standing under 6-3, look like giants. Everyone is excited about the potential of lanky Mike Glennon, but he’ll be looking up at them—they should be top-10 picks—at the end of April.

The athletic tall guy with a sweet scorer's touch in the tournament is like a great receiving tight end—he creates consistent matchup nightmares. Indiana (Cody Zeller), Duke (Mason Plumlee) and Gonzaga (Kelly Olynyk) each have one of those to power through the bracket for a while. In earlier rounds, Creighton (Doug McDermott) and Bucknell (Mike Muscala) are armed to advance.

Mock draft: When in doubt, go SEC

Mock bracket: When in doubt, go Big East

Alabama, LSU, Georgia and Florida keep churning out top-flight NFL players. It's simply not fair that they've been joined by SEC newcomers Texas A&M (Joeckel) and Missouri (Sheldon Richardson) in adding to the conference's first-round overload. Even in a disappointing year, Tennessee (Cordarrelle Patterson) is likely to have the first wide receiver off the board.

In the final year of the Big East as we know it, the conference sent eight teams to the tourney. Louisville is the favorite to win it all, but Georgetown, Syracuse and Marquette all have the makeup to go deep. The other four—Notre Dame, Pittsburgh, Villanova and Cincinnati—are battle-tested teams that will be tough early matchups. The Big East has produced five Final Four teams in the past four tournaments.

Mock draft: Think defense first

Mock bracket: Think offense first

There is a lot of attention on the strong offensive linemen (Joeckel, Eric Fisher, Chance Warmack, Lane Johnson) and, of course, the quarterbacks, near the top of the 2013 draft board. But expect the first round to be dominated by defensive tackles (Star Lotulelei, Sharrif Floyd) and edge rushers (Dion Jordan, Ezekiel Ansah, Jarvis Jones), with several cornerbacks and safeties scattered through the first 32.

In the tournament, defensive grittiness is nice, but eventually teams that can score have the edge. What do Indiana, Duke, Gonzaga, Kansas, Michigan and Louisville all have in common? They're all among the top 50 in points per game. Northwestern State (vs. Florida) and Iona (vs. Ohio State) have brutal matchups, but they got to the dance by finishing 1-2 in scoring.

If you're looking for better lower seeds with enough scoring pop to pull a huge upset, Davidson, Ole Miss and South Dakota State would be the most attractive. First Four winner St. Mary's has the firepower to upend Memphis.

Mock draft: Don't overestimate players from the West

Mock bracket: Don't underestimate teams from the West

As the only East-like marquee program in the West, USC has had a recent downswing in its NFL first-round production. Lotulelei (Utah), Jordan (Oregon) and Ansah (Brigham Young) are getting a lot of buzz as potential superstars up front. Other than them and Barkley, the Pacific and Mountain time zones may not fare well. Four other Pac-12 players (Keenan Allen, Datone Jones, Desmond Trufant, Zach Ertz) are more like wild cards who could drop into the second.

In the tournament, Pac-12 powers UCLA (vs. Minnesota) and Arizona (vs. Belmont) are becoming popular picks to go down in their 6-11 matchups. Despite playing in San Jose, California is being dismissed in its matchup with UNLV, against which it already lost.

Then you remember the Mountain West is really the class of the West in hoops, with UNLV joining four other teams (San Diego State, Colorado State, Boise State and New Mexico). Gonzaga and New Mexico, despite being 1-3 in the West region, are hearing doubts about their worthiness, mostly by those in the East who have never seen them play. Doing your homework out West can pay off—just ask Pete Carroll and Jim Harbaugh.

Mock draft: There's more parity than you think

Mock bracket: There's less parity than you think

Over the past 15 years, from Ohio State (Orlando Pace) to Stanford (Andrew Luck), 15 college football programs have produced a first overall pick in the NFL draft. In that span, college basketball has had five multiple champions (Kentucky, Connecticut, Duke, Florida, North Carolina) accounting for 11 titles. The other four winners (Michigan State, Maryland, Syracuse, Kansas) weren't exactly lightweights.

If Joeckel is the Chiefs' choice at No. 1, the beat would go on for the draft. The player with the best chance to break the streak is Star Lotulelei, who would then join his new Kansas City teammate (Alex Smith, 2005) as a No. 1 out of Utah.

In this year's wide-open tournament, Duke, Florida, Michigan State, Syracuse and Kansas all have a fair shot at making a deep run. If it's not a recent champ, there’s a good chance it will be a team that has at least won it all before—such as Louisville, Indiana, Georgetown, Ohio State, Michigan or even Wisconsin. More unheralded high seeds such as Gonzaga, New Mexico, Miami and Saint Louis have history stacked against them as they try to break through in the bracket.

Mock draft: Alabama goes for another "First Four" ... will still win it all again

Mock bracket: Alabama is in the NIT ... won't win anything

The Crimson Tide won the national championship again in football, a year after they had four first-round draft picks (Trent Richardson, Mark Barron, Dre Kirkpatrick, Dont'a Hightower). There's a chance they will have four more in 2013 (Warmack, Dee Milliner, D.J. Fluker and Jesse Williams or Eddie Lacy). Of course, this hardly will affect Alabama's roster. The program will three-peat in 2013, sending another quartet to the NFL.

Just like there is no tournament in the FBS for one more year, there is no Alabama in the NCAA Tournament. The defending champion in hoops, Kentucky, is no longer alive in the NIT (where the Tide are), and there is no dominant team in the NCAA field. Though everyone expected 'Bama to eventually roost in football without a playoff, don't get locked into one team being unbeatable in the tourney.

Mock draft: Put your money on red

Mock bracket: Put your money on red

Alabama isn't the only Crimson to like early in the draft. Oklahoma has the surefire top-12 pick in Lane Johnson. But there's plenty of room for Georgia Red (Jones, Alec Ogletree), Texas A&M Maroon (Joeckel) and even Central Michigan Maroon (Fisher). The real first-round color to watch, however, is Florida State Garnet. With Xavier Rhodes, Bjoern Werner, Menelik Watson and Cornellius Carradine, the Seminoles can match the Tide, and their quarterback, E.J. Manuel, might sneak in there late to put them over the top.

The NCAA Tournament hasn't seen a pure red team at the top in a while. The last team with that primary color to win a national title was Maryland in 2002. Before that, it was Arkansas Cardinal in '94 and UNLV Scarlet in '90.

This serves as a reminder that it's been 26 years since the Crimson-based Indiana Hoosiers cut down the nets ('87) and a year longer for Louisville Cardinals' Red. Yes, it's been so long for those teams that we were mock drafting Bo Jackson and Vinny Testaverde back-to-back to the Buccaneers.

The Cardinals' Rick Pitino is the basketball coach whose career most resembles Nick Saban's, but Alabama shares its color with Tom Crean's Hoosiers. The NCAA didn't put the Cardinals (vs. Duke) and Hoosiers (vs. Syracuse) in potential regional finals that mirrored their past title games by accident. They are the best bets to meet again at the end.